How Many Lab Animals Die Each Year

Each year, more than 100 million animals—including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds—are killed in U.South. laboratories for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity-driven experimentation, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing. Earlier their deaths, some are forced to inhale toxic fumes, others are immobilized in restraint devices for hours, some have holes drilled into their skulls, and others accept their peel burned off or their spinal cords crushed. In addition to the torment of the actual experiments, animals in laboratories are deprived of everything that is natural and important to them—they are confined to barren cages, socially isolated, and psychologically traumatized. The thinking, feeling animals who are used in experiments are treated similar nada more than dispensable laboratory equipment.

Brute Experiments Are Wasteful and Unreliable

A Pew Enquiry Center poll found that 52 percent of U.S. adults oppose the use of animals in scientific research, and other surveys suggest that the shrinking group that does have fauna experimentation does then only because it believes it to be necessary for medical progress.^5,half-dozen The majority of fauna experiments do not contribute to improving human health, and the value of the part that animal experimentation plays in nearly medical advances is questionable.

In an commodity published in The Periodical of the American Medical Association, researchers found that medical treatments adult in animals rarely translated to humans and warned that "patients and physicians should remain cautious most extrapolating the finding of prominent animal inquiry to the intendance of human illness … poor replication of even high-quality animal studies should exist expected by those who conduct clinical research."⁷

Diseases that are artificially induced in animals in a laboratory, whether they exist mice or monkeys, are never identical to those that occur naturally in human being beings. And because animal species differ from 1 some other biologically in many significant ways, it becomes even more unlikely that animal experiments volition yield results that volition be correctly interpreted and applied to the human condition in a meaningful mode.

For case, according to former National Cancer Institute Manager Dr. Richard Klausner, "Nosotros accept cured mice of cancer for decades, and information technology simply didn't piece of work in humans."⁸ This determination was echoed by former National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni, who acknowledged that experimenting on animals has been a boondoggle. "We have moved away from studying human affliction in humans," he said. "Nosotros all drank the Kool-Aid on that one, me included. … The problem is that information technology hasn't worked, and it's time we stopped dancing around the trouble. … We need to refocus and adapt new methodologies for apply in humans to understand disease biology in humans."^nine

The information is sobering: Although at least 85 HIV/AIDS vaccines have been successful in nonhuman primate studies, as of 2015, every one has failed to protect humans.¹⁰ In one case, an AIDS vaccine that was shown to exist effective in monkeys failed in human being clinical trials because it did non foreclose people from developing AIDS, and some believe that it made them more susceptible to the disease. According to a report in the British paper The Independent, ane conclusion from the failed report was that "testing HIV vaccines on monkeys before they are used on humans, does not in fact work."¹¹

These are not anomalies. The National Institutes of Wellness has stated, "Therapeutic evolution is a costly, circuitous and time-consuming process. The average length of time from target discovery to approving of a new drug is virtually xiv years. The failure charge per unit during this process exceeds 95 per centum, and the cost per successful drug can be $1 billion or more than."¹²

Inquiry published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine revealed that universities ordinarily exaggerate findings from animal experiments conducted in their laboratories and "often promote enquiry that has uncertain relevance to human health and do non provide central facts or admit important limitations."¹³ 1 study of media coverage of scientific meetings concluded that news stories often omit crucial information and that "the public may exist misled most the validity and relevance of the scientific discipline presented."¹⁴ Considering experimenters rarely publish results of failed animal studies, other scientists and the public do not have fix access to information on the ineffectiveness of animal experimentation.

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Funding and Accountability

Through their taxes, charitable donations, and purchases of lottery tickets and consumer products, members of the public are ultimately the ones who—knowingly or unknowingly—fund fauna experimentation. One of the largest sources of funding comes from publicly funded government granting agencies such equally NIH. Approximately 47 percent of NIH-funded research involves experimentation on animals, and in 2020, NIH budgeted almost $42 billion for enquiry and development.^{fifteen,sixteen} In addition, many charities––including the March of Dimes, the American Cancer Society, and countless others—use donations to fund experiments on animals. 1-third of the projects funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society involve animal experimentation.¹⁷

Despite the vast amount of public funds beingness used to underwrite animal experimentation, it is almost impossible for the public to obtain current and consummate information regarding the animal experiments that are existence carried out in their communities or funded with their tax dollars. Country open-records laws and the U.Due south. Liberty of Information Human action tin can be used to obtain documents and information from state institutions, government agencies, and other federally funded facilities, just private companies, contract labs, and animal breeders are exempt. In many cases, institutions that are subject to open-records laws fight vigorously to withhold data near brute experimentation from the public.^eighteen

Oversight and Regulation

Despite the endless animals killed each year in laboratories worldwide, most countries have grossly inadequate regulatory measures in place to protect animals from suffering and distress or to prevent them from being used when a non-animal approach is readily available. In the U.Due south., the species almost normally used in experiments (mice, rats, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians) comprise 99% of all animals in laboratories but are specifically exempted from even the minimal protections of the federal Creature Welfare Act (AWA).^19,xx Many laboratories that utilize only these species are non required by law to provide animals with pain relief or veterinarian care, to search for and consider alternatives to animal apply, to accept an institutional committee review proposed experiments, or to be inspected past the U.Southward. Section of Agriculture (USDA) or any other entity. Some estimates point that every bit many as 800 U.S. laboratories are not subject to federal laws and inspections because they experiment exclusively on mice, rats, and other animals whose apply is largely unregulated.²¹

Every bit for the more than xi,000 facilities that the USDA does regulate (of which more than 1,200 are designated for "research"), just 120 USDA inspectors are employed to oversee their operations.²² Reports have repeatedly concluded that fifty-fifty the minimal standards set forth by the AWA are non being met by these facilities, and institutionally based oversight bodies, called Institutional Animal Intendance and Use Committees (IACUCs), have failed to carry out their mandate. A 1995 report by the USDA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) "found that the activities of the IACUCs did not ever meet the standards of the AWA. Some IACUCs did not ensure that unnecessary or repetitive experiments would not be performed on laboratory animals."²³ In 2000, a USDA survey of the agency'due south laboratory inspectors revealed serious problems in numerous areas, including "the search for alternatives [and] review of painful procedures."²⁴ A September 2005 audit report issued by the OIG found ongoing "problems with the search for alternative research, veterinary care, review of painful procedures, and the researchers' apply of animals."²⁵ In December 2014, an OIG report documented continuing problems with laboratories declining to comply with the minimal AWA standards and the USDA's weak enforcement actions declining to deter future violations. The audit highlighted that from 2009 to 2011, USDA inspectors cited 531 experimentation facilities for 1,379 violations stemming from the IACUCs' failure to adequately review and monitor the use of animals. The inspect also adamant that in 2012, the USDA reduced its penalties to AWA violators by an average of 86 percent, even in cases involving beast deaths and egregious violations.²⁶

Research co-authored past PETA documented that, on average, animal experimenters and laboratory veterinarians comprise a combined 82 percent of the membership of IACUCs at leading U.S. institutions. A whopping 98.half dozen pct of the leadership of these IACUCs was also made upwardly of animate being experimenters. The authors observed that the ascendant role played by beast experimenters on these committees "may dilute input from the few IACUC members representing creature welfare and the general public, contribute to previously-documented commission bias in favor of approving creature experiments and reduce the overall objectivity and effectiveness of the oversight organization."²⁷ Even when facilities are fully compliant with the law, animals who are covered tin be burned, shocked, poisoned, isolated, starved, forcibly restrained, addicted to drugs, and brain-damaged. No procedures or experiments, regardless of how lilliputian or painful they may exist, are prohibited by federal law. When valid non-brute inquiry methods are available, no federal police force requires experimenters to apply such methods instead of animals.

Alternatives to Animal Testing

A high-profile study published in the prestigious BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) documenting the ineffectiveness and waste material of experimentation on animals concluded that "if enquiry conducted on animals continues to be unable to reasonably predict what tin can be expected in humans, the public'southward standing endorsement and funding of preclinical beast research seems misplaced."²⁸

Research with human volunteers, sophisticated computational methods, and in vitro studies based on human cells and tissues are critical to the advocacy of medicine. Cut-edge non-fauna inquiry methods are available and accept been shown time and once again to be more accurate than crude beast experiments.²⁹ However, this mod research requires a different outlook, one that is creative and compassionate and embraces the underlying philosophy of ethical scientific discipline. Human health and well-being tin can also be promoted by adopting nonviolent methods of scientific investigation and concentrating on the prevention of affliction earlier it occurs, through lifestyle modification and the prevention of further environmental pollution and degradation. The public is becoming more than aware and more than vocal about the cruelty and inadequacy of the current inquiry organisation and is enervating that tax dollars and charitable donations not be used to fund experiments on animals.

History of Animal Testing

PETA created "Without Consent"—an interactive timeline featuring well-nigh 200 stories of animal experiments from the past century—to open people'south optics to the long history of suffering that'southward been inflicted on nonconsenting animals in laboratories and to claiming people to rethink this exploitation. Visit "Without Consent" to learn more about harrowing animal experiments throughout history and how yous can help create a meliorate future for living, feeling beings.

Without Consent

Y'all Can Help Stop Fauna Testing

Virtually all federally funded enquiry is paid for with your revenue enhancement dollars. Your lawmakers needs to know that y'all don't want your money used to pay for animal experiments.

Urge your members of Congress to endorse PETA's Inquiry Modernization Deal, which provides a roadmap for modernizing U.S. investment in research past ending funding for useless experiments on animals and investing in effective research that's relevant to humans.

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Not a U.South. Resident? Take Action Here

Creature Testing Facts and Figures

United states of america (2019)^1,two

• Almost one one thousand thousand animals are held captive in laboratories or used in experiments (excluding rats, mice, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and agricultural animals used in agricultural experiments), plus an estimated 100 million mice and rats

Canada (2020)ⁱⁱⁱ

• 5.07 million animals used in experiments
• 94,543 animals subjected to "astringent pain near, at, or to a higher place the pain tolerance threshold of unanesthetized witting animals"

United Kingdom(2020)⁴

• 2.88 million procedures on animals
• Of the 1.iv million experiments completed in 2020, 57,600 were assessed every bit "severe," including "long-term affliction processes where assistance with normal activities such as feeding and drinking are required or where significant deficits in behaviours/activities persist."

References

ⁱCreature and Plant Health Inspection Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, "Annual Study Animate being Usage by Fiscal Year: Total Number of Animals Research Facilities Used in Regulated Activities (Column B)" and "Almanac Report Animal Usage by Fiscal Twelvemonth: Total Number of Animals Research Facilities used in Regulated Activities (Column F)," 27 Apr. 2021.
²Madhusree Mukerjee, "Speaking for the Animals: A Veterinary Analyzes the Turf Battles That Have Transformed the Animal Laboratory," Scientific American, Aug. 2004.
^threeCanadian Quango on Animal Care,"CCAC 2020 Animal Data Written report," 2021
^iv U.M. Regime, "Almanac Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Bully Britain 2020," Home Office, fifteen July 2021.
^fiveCary Funk and Meg Hefferon, "Most Americans Accept Genetic Applied science of Animals That Benefits Human Health, just Many Oppose Other Uses," Pew Research Center, 16 Aug. 2018
⁶Peter Aldhous and Andy Coghlan, "Let the People Speak," New Scientist 22 May 1999.
^sevenDaniel G. Hackam, M.D., and Donald A. Redelmeier, M.D., "Translation of Enquiry Show From Animals to Human," The Journal of the American Medical Clan 296 (2006): 1731-2.
⁸Marlene Simmons et al., "Cancer-Cure Story Raises New Questions," Los Angeles Times 6 May 1998.
^nineRich McManus, "Ex-Director Zerhouni Surveys Value of NIH Research," NIH Record 21 June 2013.
¹⁰Jarrod Bailey, "An Assessment of the Role of Chimpanzees in AIDS Vaccine Research," Alternatives to Laboratory Animals 36 (2008): 381-428.
¹¹Steve Connor and Chris Green, "Is It Time to Give Upwards the Search for an AIDS Vaccine?" The Independent 24 Apr. 2008.
¹²National Institutes of Wellness, "Nigh New Therapeutic Uses," National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences 9 Oct. 2019.
¹³Steve Woloshin, M.D., One thousand.S., et al., "Press Releases by Academic Medical Centers: Not And so Academic?" Annals of Internal Medicine 150 (2009): 613-8.
^xivSteven Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz, "Media Reporting on Enquiry Presented at Scientific Meetings: More Caution Needed," The Medical Journal of Commonwealth of australia 184 (2006): 576-lxxx.
^xvDiana E. Pankevich et al., "International Fauna Research Regulations: Touch on on Neuroscience Research," The National Academies (2012).
¹⁶National Institutes of Health, "Budget," (final accessed on 3 May 2021).
¹⁷Pankevich et a50.
¹⁸Deborah Ziff, "On Campus: PETA Sues UW Over Admission to Research Records," Wisconsin Land Journal 5 Apr. 2010.
^xixU.Due south. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, "Creature Welfare, Definition of Animate being," Federal Register, 69 (2004): 31513-4.
²⁰Justin Goodman et al., "Trends in Fauna Employ at United states of america Research Facilities," Periodical of Medical Ethics 0(2015): ane-3.
²¹The Associated Press, "Animal Welfare Deed May Non Protect All Critters," vii May 2002.
²²U.Southward. Department of Agronomics, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, "Animal Care: Search."
²³U.Southward. Department of Agronomics, Office of Inspector General, "APHIS Animal Care Program, Inspection and Enforcement Activities," inspect study, 30 Sept. 2005.
²⁴U.Due south. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Institute Health Inspection Service, "USDA Employee Survey on the Effectiveness of IACUC Regulations," Apr. 2000.
²⁵U.Southward. Section of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, "APHIS Brute Care Program, Inspection and Enforcement Activities," audit report, 30 Sept. 2005.
²⁶U.South. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector Full general, "Brute and Plant Health Inspection Service Oversight of Research Facilities," audit report, December. 2014.
²⁷Lawrence A. Hansen et afifty., "Analysis of Animal Inquiry Ethics Commission Membership at American Institutions," Animals 2 (2012): 68-75.
²⁸Pandora Pound and Michael Bracken, "Is Brute Research Sufficiently Prove Based To Be A Cornerstone of Biomedical Enquiry?," BMJ (2014): 348.
²⁹Junhee Seok et al., "Genomic Responses in Mouse Models Poorly Mimic Human Inflammatory Diseases," Proceedings of the National University of Sciences 110 (2013): 3507-12.

Source: https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/animals-used-experimentation-factsheets/animal-experiments-overview/

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